Alright, so it's been a while. Sorry about that. But with work, family vacation, etc. etc. it's been hard getting into the garage to get some work done. Regardless here is a brief update on what I've been doing with the bike.
Fired up the old propane fuel forge for some iron work. Was probably not the best of ideas on a 90 degree day but it had to be done.
Here's the only photo I took after forging was done. Was just too damn hot and sweaty to take any more. Bent, tapered, shaped, and drilled the rear fender stays on the swing arm.
After I got a drink of water and cooled down I fabricated up a quick fender stay for the third anchor point to make it good and solid. As it turns out I'm going to have to shape the fender a little bit in order to adjust that downward angle of the rear blinkers in the photo above. Have as of yet to accomplish this.
Here are a couple photos of the first attempt at a gauge cluster mount for the speedo and tach.
Yeah, it ended up having to mount the gauges crooked. Was going to deal with until I came up with a better idea. Turns out my Dad came up with a better idea sooner than I could. Hence why these are photos of the FIRST gauge cluster mount.
First attempt at front blinker mounts. Have since come up with a better idea. Again by good ole Dad.
Nasty oil covered failing 30+ year old rear shocks.
New cheepies but I figured they are probably better than the stockers.
After all that work I found out my clutch was stuck and the rear fender hit the seat spring mounting bar. Had to take the engine out of the frame and do a ton of cutting to get the steel out. Bummer. Three steps forward and two back. Live and learn I guess.
So here's how I came up with the new front blinker mount. Take a 3/8"-16 bolt....
Mount it in the drill press and drill out the middle, cut the head off, cut threads and shank to length...
Insert into a 1/2" O.D. hollow tube from the Depot....
Blinkers thread onto the bolts. The hollow bolts allow the wire of the blinker to pass through into the tube. The bolts will be welded into the tube with plug welds when I've finally decided on size, spacing, and location of the light bar.
Rough idea of how the blinker bar looks in relation to the front end. Location yet to be determined.
New hard mounting of the seat to the seat rails.
I redid the swing arm mounting of the fender stays to look and fit better.
New gauge cluster mount. Fabricated out of 3/16" plate. Single solid piece cut and shaped with hand tools. That took nearly an entire day. Not very fun to do by hand in the middle of the summer in a garage without AC.
Front view of the gauges. Much better now that they are straight.
Re-made the headlight mount to mount the light higher in the trees.
Got a different rear master cylinder. Details on how and where this is mounting to come in the future.
Hand made and stitched in Dexter Maine black leather tool bag for $40. Was blown away to find this while on family vaca. Couldn't pass this bad boy up.
Motor removed from the frame and put on the bench for service.
Got the side cover off to get access to the clutch. Plates were nice and stuck together but otherwise appear to be in good working order. Just need to clean out all the oil sludge, redo the gaskets, nice oil change, clean up all the chain/road sludge on the other side and get her put all back together.
Well that's the long/short version of whats been going on with the bike build. I'll keep ya'll posted.
